Sanders to Vote ‘No’ On Trade Agreements

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

WASHINGTON, Oct.
12 - Saying U.S. trade policy has been "a disaster" for American workers, Sen.
Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said today he will vote against proposed trade
agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia.

Sanders said
that the agreements are a continuation of trade pacts like the North America
Free Trade Agreement and normalized trade with China which resulted in the loss
of millions of jobs in America and the loss of thousands of factories in
Vermont and across the country.

"Trade
agreements like NAFTA and Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China have cost
this country millions of good-paying jobs as companies shut down factories here
and move to low-wage countries abroad," Sanders said in remarks prepared for a
Senate floor speech.

"In the last 10
years alone we have lost 50,000 factories and it is harder and harder to buy
products manufactured in the United States. These new trade agreements
are nothing more than a continuation of a failed trade policy and should be
rejected. Our demand must be that corporations reinvest in this country,
create jobs here and not in China or other low-wage countries," he said.

Sanders cited
figures that showed that over the last decade, U.S. multi-national corporations
slashed 2.9 million American jobs, while creating 2.4 million jobs overseas.

Congress should
send a message to multi-national corporations that "they cannot keep sending
America's future overseas" and that they may no longer sell out the American
middle class.

"In the United States today, real unemployment
is 16 percent, the middle class is collapsing and poverty is increasing,"
Sanders added. "One of the reasons is that we now have far fewer decent-paying
manufacturing jobs than we used to. We need trade policies that protect
the interests of American workers, and not just the CEOs of large
corporations."